What the anti-stay-at-home protests are really about - Tea Party Astroturf, Part II

[TomCADem]

Last edited Fri Jul 17, 2020, 11:24 AM - Edit history (1)

It is no accident that the anti-mask protests look and feel like the Tea Party protests that took place at the start of President Obama's presidency. You have a well funded, corporate organizer like Freedom Works, and you have Fox News for amplification:

Link to tweet

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https://www.vox.com/2020/4/19/21225195/stay-at-home-protests-trump-tea-party-reelection

I spoke with Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters, a left-leaning group that tracks right-leaning media. To him, the anti-shutdown protests bear striking similarities to the early days of the Tea Party movement, with smaller events promoted by radio hosts and local conservative figures that are then “heavily promoted and amplified by Fox News and the rest of the right-wing echo chamber,” in his view.

While he told me many of these groups were “very real” — “they’re not being driven by sophisticated operatives, necessarily” — they are receiving additional amplification through Fox News, “throwing some kindling” on the protests, in his words.

Carusone told me that in contrast to how Fox News reports on left-leaning protests (for example, this 2017 Fox News report that blames a Black Lives Matter effort to encourage black Americans to shop only at black-owned businesses on billionaire George Soros), the anti-stay-at-home-order protests are being covered approvingly, with any extremism (or violations of social distancing taking place) minimized.

Telling me that we’re in the “proto stage” of these protests currently as they gain wider attention, Carusone described the effort as a three-step process for Fox News: “Raise awareness about it to make it into like a broad national movement, a cauldron of energy. Carry some of the water for [the protests]. And don’t mention any of the extremist ties.”

[cayugafalls]

1. The one thing the alt-right has that we don't is the huge hate radio coverage.

It is everywhere.

Until that is shut down, we will never get rid of the stupid.

[BigmanPigman]

2. Hear, hear!

[TomCADem]

3. With the Pandemic, You Now Have Freedomworks Hijacking Local Govt Meetings

Before, you would have Freedomworks sponsoring seminars on how to disrupt Congressional townhalls to set-up made for Fox confrontations with members of Congress. Unfortunately, this caused members of Congress to stop holding townhalls, particularly when progressives caught on and started showing up at Republican townhalls.

This time around, you have Republican Trump supporters showing up at random local government meetings to hold anti-mask protests. For example, here is a school board meeting in Utah where demonstrators disregarded social distancing requirements and repeatedly insisted that COVID-19 was a hoax:

[cayugafalls]

4. The vocal minority. We need to organize and use the same tactics.

Squeeze them out. We need to learn from them and fight fire with fire. Start an organization that can counter them.

If we don't we will always be behind. We have to get out in front of them and start playing by their rules. They changed them and if we don't play by the new rules we will have to fight twice as hard and still may lose.

I am not trying to be hyperbolic here. I don't have the money or wherewithal to do it, but I would gladly help any organization that started to counter something like freedomworks.

[malaise]

5. Call it what it is

The Con's private army